


This Life

by palamig



Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance, Slight spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 21:39:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18533668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palamig/pseuds/palamig
Summary: Kyo tears a page from his calendar, and with gentle hands, he folds it into a paper flower, just like he remembered from some sinful dream, a long time ago, of a girl with warm eyes and ribbons weaved into her hair.-A collection of Kyoru AUs.





	This Life

There’s an old, faded calendar that’s hung on his wall turned to some month in spring ten years ago. Since then, Kyo had stopped counting the days that pass by.

It’s the last day of December today. From the bright, dancing lights, the fireworks, and the low rumbling of drums coming from the main house in the distance, tonight is the turn of the new year.

Kyo spends the new year eating umeboshi rice balls all by himself.

“Ojii-san...”

A small voice snaps him from his thoughts. Kyo slowly peers out of his door to find a little girl standing on his front steps.

“Are you lost?” He smiles gently. He wants to be careful with this one this time around.

The little girl stood frozen on her feet. Her eyes, wide in shock, start welling with tears. She takes one step backward. He doesn’t stop her. He doesn’t forget who he was to these people. He doesn’t forget the sin that’s warranted this punishment.

He tears a page from his calendar, and with gentle hands, he folds it into a paper flower, just like he remembered from some sinful dream, a long time ago, of a girl with warm eyes and ribbons weaved into her hair. A dream that made him feel as if his existence can be forgiven even for just a little while.

He offers his paper flower to the little girl.

“I-I’m s-so..sorry,” The girl forces in between erratic breathing, “o-ojii...”

But she doesn’t continue. Kyo thinks she’s brave for holding out this long. But children are terribly honest. The little girl turns her heel quickly and he watches as she runs away from him, like everyone else who had wandered off into this part of the “inside.”

Kyo stares at the paper flower in his hand.

He is too old and too worn to feel angry. After all the January firsts he had spent eating umeboshi rice balls all alone in the deepest part of this forest since that day in spring ten years ago, all that’s left of him is resignation. He feels his heart grow heavy but it doesn’t matter. It never did.

In the distance, the music is slowing to a stop. The main house is firing up the last of the fireworks. The Banquet is almost over but Kyo has already shut his door.

And like a cruel reminder, the rain begins to dribble over his roof. It drowns away the last of his remaining energy, so he turns off the single light bulb in his tiny house and slips beneath his thin bed sheets. The umeboshi rice balls have grown cold. He’d long lost his appetite.  He wonders absently whether the little girl made it safely back into the main house.

Kyo’s eyes land on his arm and the beaded bracelet heavy around his wrist like a chain of which he will never be able to escape. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in any of the days he has left in this world

The wind is howling against the shaking walls of the cat’s lonely room an old familiar song he does not remember the words to, a gentle voice he thinks he heard once upon a dream.

 _Together_ , it sings. _We will face everything together_.

As he closes his eyes, holding the paper flower close to his heart, he wonders if, in some other life, he lived a good one.

* * *

( _There must be someone in this world who won’t reject you_ , shishou told him a long, long time ago.

It’s ten years later and Kyo is no longer a fool.)

**Author's Note:**

> ༎ຶ ͜ʖ ༎ຶ
> 
> (I also realize im flooding the furuba tag im so sorry)


End file.
